Interview with a Vampire

Interesting the people you meet in jail. I make this comment because a fellow by the name of Lawrence Seiderfeld recently rolled into Dublin. Who is Laurence Seiderfeld you might ask? Well Mr. Seiderfeld was convicted a short time ago of mortgage fraud and was sentenced to 79 months for his crimes. He was the C.E.O. of a company called CHL Mortgage located in San Ramon, California. CHL had 12 branch offices; 11 between northern and southern California and 1 branch in Ohio. There were 250 employees between these branches and CHL was in business for a little over 6 years. The specific crime Mr. Seiderfeld was convicted of was double-selling the servicing rights of the loans CHL wrote. In fact he sold the servicing rights of these loans to 3 different servicers at various times. He openly admits to his guilt and because he cooperated with the government he will serve 6 years instead of 15. The commission of his crimes netted him an additional 8 to 13 million dollars. At least that is what the government claims the damages were.

Now you can imagine that I was eager to speak with Mr. Seiderfeld about banking and mortgages in general. Irregardless of his criminal activities he still has knowledge I could tap into as well as further confirm what Kurt and I already know about banking, mortgages specifically. At least that is what I believed when Mr. Seiderfeld agreed to allow me to ask him a few questions. I treated this interview as if I was examining a witness under oath on the stand. Also present for the questioning was Josh Wolf the reporter who is not charged with a crime but is being held as a hostage because he refuses to hand over a video tape to the FBI. You can read more about Josh at www.joshwolf.net. Josh just so happens to have the same Judge as we do. Generally speaking Mr. Seiderfeld displayed what I would consider a working knowledge of banking and the loan transaction. When I began to peel back the onion his answers became contradictory and his attitude somewhat defensive. However he did provide answers to some questions that were substantive and which demonstrated the disingenuous nature of the banks in the concealment of the actual facts of the loan transaction. What I found fascinating about our time together was even though I provided proof by way of statues and codes of what congress intended banks to behave like Mr. Seiderfeld was resistant to these facts. There were well over 100 questions asked in the first session and an additional 30 or so in the 2nd session. He grew weary of my questioning which I believe stemmed from his inability to reconcile the inconsistencies of his answers. For instance, Mr. Seiderfeld agreed that the promissory note is an asset and that asset belongs to the maker of the note. He agreed that the maker of the note was the purported borrower. So when I asked him if the borrower benefited from the selling of the note (not the same as servicing the note) he said “no,” because the note belonged to the bank. I asked how the bank got the rights, title and interest in the note if it belonged to the maker? Mr. Seiderfeld indicated, “when the bank issued the credit for the loan.” What Mr. Seiderfeld is completely ignorant of is that the servicing of the note is different than ownership of it. Nowhere in the mortgage contract or in the note itself is there a transfer of rights, title and interest. Therefore the sale of the note without the disclosure or benefit to the maker is fraud in concealment, fraud in factum and theft of an asset. This is very simple to understand and the banks hide it in plain sight. When I asked if it was unlawful or illegal to convey property into trust he indicated “no.” When asked if the trustees have a fiduciary obligation to protect the assets in trust he answered “yes!” When I asked if the trustees as fiduciaries challenging title to property, where such title or cloud on title was possibly unlawful or illegal, he stated “no.” However he indicated if his company was to have received our presentment they would have ignored it passing it off as unnecessary to respond to. I found this to be quite fascinating and very telling of why none of the banks or mortgage companies ever responded timely or properly to our presentment. I gave a copy of our presentment to Mr. Seiderfeld to read and he indicated that the contract was written clearly and there wasn’t anything in it that he didn’t understand. His only complaint was the amount of time we gave the banks and mortgage companies to respond. He thought it should have been more like 90 days instead of 10 days. When I pointed out that 3 days is the usual and customary time permitted he disagreed. Of course Mr. Seiderfeld was unable to quote from any code, statute or act to substantiate his “opinion.” Apparently he is unfamiliar with the expedious transaction act at Title 12 part 226.1 or the Truth in Lending Act at Title 31 part 226.1

At the conclusion of our time together I asked Mr. Seiderfeld if he believed we were making spurious requests upon the banks and mortgage companies and he indicate “no.” I also asked if he thought we would receive a fair trial to which he replied “no.” I asked if he would be willing to testify and he responded “yes.” That actually surprised me in light of his defensiveness. You may have noticed that I did not get into the treatment of the promissory note where it is converted from a promise to pay into a draft which created the credit that pays off the seller of the property, or that the deposit of the note allows the bank or mortgage company to subsidize additional “loans” visa-vi fractional banking. This is because Mr. Seiderfeld’s company was not a direct lender therefore his knowledge of the initial transaction was very limited in scope. I should also mention that Mr. Seiderfeld is 63 years old and has been in the business of finance for over 30 years. I discovered after the interview that Mr. Seiderfeld was convicted of similar crimes previously. I guess the love of money is the root of evil after all. I hope you enjoyed reading this as well as were enlightened by it. We thank you for your prayers and support. May God richly bless you. - Scott